The King Who Threw Away His Throne Read online

  ‘I think it better too, sire,’ I nodded. ‘I can have a few loyal servants ready to leave tomorrow evening after it gets dark. By morning light we’ll be fifty miles away.’

  And so we fled from the place they called England. And a week later we came to my homeland of Wales.

  I took Vortigern to Tegwyn, the leader of the Dubonni tribe. Tegwyn welcomed the old king as his master and the tribe began to plan a new home and a new life for Vortigern.

  Of course, I had become the king’s closest adviser and top servant. I had saved him and he treated me like one of his lords. Of course his other lords had ended up dead. If I had known that I was building a path to my own grave I’d have run back to England.

  I knew Vortigern was a fool. I didn’t believe Tegwyn could be just as stupid.

  The trouble (for me) began when they started to build a new palace at Dinas Emrys. The men and women of the Dubonni tribe laboured hard all day to build a fine tower of hard, grey mountain stone. But that night when the work stopped...

  Vortigern sat up in bed. ‘What was that sound like thunder?’ he cried.

  I was sleeping at his door as his guard. ‘Is it the Saxon hordes come to hunt me down? Save me, Mervyn,’ he wailed and shivered under his sheepskin bed cover.

  Moments later, Tegwyn was at the door. ‘Oh, King Vortigern,’ he sighed. ‘It’s your tower. It has fallen down.’

  ‘Oh, is that all?’ the king laughed.

  Tegwyn promised they would build it up again. And so they did, the next day. But at night when the work stopped... the tower collapsed again.

  Every night for a week the Dubonni built the tower and ever night it fell down.

  After a week Vortigern asked Tegwyn to get help from a wise man. I was serving wild boar stew when the two men met.

  ‘No need,’ Tegwyn said. ‘I am famous for being a wise man. Famous, see?’

  ‘So what is the problem, wise Tegwyn,’ the king asked.

  ‘It’s like this you see. There is an old belief in this part of Britain that says a new house must have a blood sacrifice,’ Tegwyn said. Wisely.

  ‘I’ve heard of that,’ Vortigern nodded... almost as wisely.

  ‘Sometimes a human victim is walled up alive,’ silly, wise Tegwyn went on.

  ‘Sounds daft to me,’ I muttered.

  ‘Sometimes they are killed and their blood mixed with the cement,’ the Dubonni chief continued.

  ‘Messy,’ I muttered.

  ‘And sometimes the blood of a victim must be sprinkled on the ground,’ he added.

  I wouldn’t want to paddle through that in my bare feet. Or even in my boots. I was disgusted.

  Vortigern said, ‘So let’s kill one of the workmen.’

  ‘No, no! The blood must be the blood of an innocent, fatherless boy.’

  Vortigern shook his head. ‘I don’t know any fatherless boys.’ He looked up. ‘Except Mervyn here... and he’s my best servant. I can’t afford to lose him.’

  Tegwyn’s eyes went narrow. ‘Winter will be here soon. You can’t afford to delay the building any longer,’ he said. He marched to the door and called to his tribesmen. ‘Right, lads, give Mervyn here the chop.’

  6

  The Dragons

  I pushed past Tegwyn to the door. ‘No, wait. Don’t kill me. Killing me will not stop your castle falling down,’ I cried. But the swords were drawn. Grim-faced men and women walked steadily towards me. I turned and ran.

  I ran outside and through the village, then I took the path that led down the mountain. I knew I was finished. No matter how fast or far I ran they would catch me in the end. My only hope was to hide for a while. When the hunters went past me I could creep back up the hill and beg Vortigern to listen to me.

  I threw myself off the track just before the mob came around the corner. There was a crack in the rock. I squeezed myself in as far as I could go. I pushed harder and, suddenly, I fell. It wasn’t a crack in the rock. It was the opening to a cave.

  The late evening sun lit the inside and shone on a calm lake of black water. Dust and small stones drifted down from the high roof. And I knew. This was a cave beneath the tower. This was the reason the building fell down.

  Of course these fools wouldn’t believe something as simple as that could wreck their fine palace plans. So by the time I had slipped out of the narrow entrance I had a new legend ready for the simple minds of the simple king and the simpler people.

  I ran back up the hill. Tegwyn was standing at the top of the path and drew his sword. He blew a hunting horn to bring the hunters back and gather the rest of the tribe. Vortigern came to the door.

  ‘So good of you to come back,’ the king said. ‘You saved my life so I will repay you.’

  ‘Thank you, sire,’ I said.

  ‘I will make sure your death is quick and clean. None of that being walled up alive to die slowly. Bend your neck forward and Tegwyn will take it off with a single stroke. I’ll catch the blood in this bowl.’

  ‘No,’ I groaned. ‘I know the real reason the tower is falling down. I found a cave beneath the tower floor.’

  ‘That wouldn’t make the tower fall,’ Tegwyn said. He ran his thumb along the edge of his sword to test to see if it was sharp enough.

  ‘No. Listen. Beneath this ground there is a pool. And in the pool there are two dragons – a red dragon and a white dragon. Every night they fight and it’s their struggle that brings the tower down.’

  The villagers gasped in wonder. Vortigern’s watery, hazel eyes marvelled. ‘Amazing. What a clever boy you are. Here, lads, maybe we should give the stupid, wise chief the chop instead.’

  Tegwyn saw the crowd turn towards him. He turned. He ran. No one followed. They all wanted to hear what I had to say.

  ‘Now, young Mervyn, what can we do about it?’

  ‘The red dragon is Wales, the white dragon is Saxon England. When the red dragon defeats the white then peace will return,’ I said.

  Vortigern cried, ‘So, all we have to do is defeat the Saxons. Right, lads. Off to fight the Saxons...’

  A day later they were ready to march back east to England and war. I didn’t care. I said I’d stay behind and build a new palace – on a safer ground – for Vortigern when he returned with the heads of Hengist and Horsa. ‘And Rowena,’ the old king added bitterly.

  Of course Vortigern never did get to defeat the Saxons. That was down to another British leader – the man they knew as Arthur. He was a simple-minded son of a warrior chief. He had a bit of luck and won a few battles... with me making the plans for him.

  By then my name – Mervyn – had been changed to the English ‘Merlin’.

  With my sharp wit and Arthur’s strong arm we went to battle together.

  One day I will write of Arthur’s adventures and he will be a British hero and a legend for all times. Oh, not because he’s a great hero... but because I am a great teller of tales.

  I think I will start with a sword that is stuck fast in a stone. Only the true king of Britain can pull it out. It’s nonsense, of course, but people believe most things if they are impossible enough.

  So, let’s see... Arthur, a sword in a stone and a round table for his band of knights.

  Do you think people will believe that two thousand years from now?

  Of course they will.

  The True Story

  The Romans left Britain around 410 AD. They left the British people with no defence. The Picts and Scots attacked from the north and the Angles, Saxons and Jutes from across the North Sea.

  The history writers of those days said Vortigern was King of the British and came up with the plan of using Hengist and Horsa to drive the Picts out. The king fell in love with Rowena and gave the Saxons more than they deserved. The problem was the Saxon brothers decided to stay. They killed the British lords at a feast and made Vortigern rule for them.

  Vortigern went off to Wales where his new palace kept falling down each night after it was built. The legend says Merlin was pick
ed to be a sacrifice. He told a story of the two dragons fighting in a pool below the building and saved himself. The legend goes on the say that Merlin went on to be King Arthur’s closest friend in his battle against the Saxon invaders.

  The tales of Merlin and Arthur are mostly legend, though the British really did defeat the Saxons in battles at that time. And when Dinas Emrys was excavated in the 1950s they really did find a deep pool beneath it. The red dragon became the symbol of the Welsh.

  Some writers think Vortigern was a legend and never existed. We may never know.

  YOU TRY...

  1. Imagine a Saxon Army is marching towards your town. They will make you their slave. You have to flee with just a pony to carry things. What FIVE things would you take with you? Why would you choose each one? What would you miss most?

  2. King Vortigern is rich and very proud. He would probably have a minstrel to sing him songs each night as he feasted by the fireside. Of course the minstrels would sing about the great things Vortigern had done and the battles he had won, how the people of Britain loved him. The minstrel would sing of the great things Vortigern would do in future. Can YOU write a rhyming minstrel song that would make the king want to give you food, a cosy bed for the night and even a purse of gold? Write any poem you like, but it might begin…

  ‘Oh Vortigern, our mighty king,

  Of your great deeds I want to sing.

  3. There are no pictures of the cruel and vicious brothers Hengist and Horsa. (The pictures in the story are how the artist thinks he might have looked.) How do YOU think the warriors and their sister may have looked? Draw your own pictures to show this ruthless family.

  Terry Deary’s Saxon Tales

  If you liked this book why not look out for the rest of Terry Deary’s Saxon Tales?

  Terry Deary’s Shakespeare Tales

  Meet Shakespeare and his theatre company in Terry Deary’s Shakespeare Tales.

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  This electronic edition published in 2017

  Copyright © Terry Deary, 2017

  Illustrations copyright © Tambe, 2017

  Terry Deary and Tambe have asserted their rights under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author and Illustrator of this work.

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  ISBN

  PB: 978 1 4729 2920 4

  ePub: 978 1 4729 2921 1

  ePDF: 978 1 4729 2922 8

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